Privatization in China

Term Paper # 104874

Asian Studies
Economics
Political Science

This paper explores worker resistance to privatization in the state-owned sector of the Chinese economy.

2,056 words () | 7 sources | MLA | 2008 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper examines why individuals working within state-owned enterprises in China have not relented in their resistance to privatization.
Specifically, the paper discusses fears about job loss, the elimination of traditional job benefits and the general cynicism felt by many when looking at Beijing's efforts to carry out major economic reforms. The paper also examines the productivity of the country's state-owned enterprises and the social inequalities that privatization has created or aggravated. The paper concludes that there are many compelling reasons why so many individuals within China's remaining state-owned firms are unhappy with privatization.

From the Paper:

"To start with, state employees are unhappy about privatization because of what it means for their long-term future. For many decades prior to the advent of the contemporary privatization phenomenon in China, state workers could expect to receive from SOEs or state-owned enterprises lifetime employment, free health care, respectable (even enviable) pensions, and inexpensive housing. In more recent years, as the privatization and "marketization" measures of Beijing have been felt in more and more quarters, responsibility for welfare provision have increasingly shifted to individuals and to communities (Gu, 129). Understandably, this new burden is not exactly embraced by workers who, whatever benefits they received in the past terms of job security and in terms of attendant benefits, were not extravagantly recompensed for their time and effort."

Sample of Sources Used:

Gu, Edward X. "Beyond the Property Rights Approach: Welfare Policy and the Reform of State-Owned Enterprises in China." Development & Change, 32.1 (2001): 129-150.
Gu, Edward X., and Jianjun Zhang. "Health Care Regime Change in Urban China: Unmanaged Marketization and Reluctant Privatization." Pacific Affairs, 79.1 (2006): 49-71.
Lau, W.K. "The 15th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party: Milestone in China's Privatization." Capital & Class, 68, 51-87.
Liu, X. "Financing Reforms of Public Health Services in China: Lessons for Other Nations." Social Science & Medicine, 54.11 (2002): 1691-1698.
Su, Baoren, Xiangyou Shen, and Zhou Wei. "Leisure Life in Later Years: Differences between Rural and Urban Elderly Residents in China." Journal of Leisure Research, 38.3 (2006): 381-397.